->''"In the not too distant future, wars will no longer exist. But there will be Rollerball."''-->-- TagLine for ''Film/{{Rollerball}}'' (1975).

In TheFuture, [[AnyoneCanDie life is cheap]]. Apparently, mankind forgot the whole thing about the sanctity of life somewhere [[Main/TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture in the past nineteen minutes]] simply for the sake of [[BreadAndCircuses mindless entertainment]]. No better way to show that than with some good old-fashioned violent spectator sports, where fatalities are a very real possibility every single game, [[CrapsackWorld if not the major selling point]]. Essentially, a Blood Sport is a DeadlyGame version of a modern spectator sport.

Exactly how the sport is dangerous varies. It could be as simple as something extremely risky, such as racing at supersonic speeds, a more mundane sport with the added bonus that the players are allowed/encouraged to physically attack each other, or flat out GladiatorGames of some kind where the entire goal is for one side to kill or seriously maim the other.

Of course, this trope is not limited to the future; gladiator-style entertainments often pop up in the {{Backstory}} of a BarbarianHero, for instance. This is historical TruthInTelevision, of course; formalized bloodsports have been around since at least the ancient Greek Olympic Games, while UsefulNotes/TheRomanEmpire is the TropeCodifier for these kinds of sports, and informal ones most likely go further back than that.

Usually, the deaths will be of the many young rookie players, but sometimes, a veteran slips up, or a longtime feud will come to a sudden, violent end. Frequently, the players are {{Condemned Contestant}}s and their violent deaths are part of the attraction.

These sports may form the central part of the story, but in many cases, they're just shown or described as a way of letting the audience know just how messed-up this world has become.

A slightly more optimistic variation is where the Blood Sport has come around [[MakeGamesNotWar as an alternative to actual wars]]. In many cases, it will often be actual fighting, only more ritualized. Of course, if you thought sports was SeriousBusiness before...

Also common in many martial arts stories, with pit fighting and Kumite-style tournaments where people fight to the death.

See also Main/VehicularCombat for a type commonly found in videogames. IKnowMaddenKombat is the inversion of this trope, kinda sorta; sports skills used as combat arts ''off'' the field. ImprobableSportsSkills may involve things that look like violence but that is not the intent of that trope.

Not to be confused with ''Film/{{Bloodsport}}'', the Jean-Claude van Damme film, though the eponymous tournament definitely is one, or the obscure {{Franchise/Superman}} villain. Neither is "Bloodsport for all" by the band "Carter The Unstoppable Sex Machine" this trope (except maybe figuratively).

See also SnuffFilm and ImmoralRealityShow. BeastlyBloodsports is a subtrope involving animals. SpectatorCasualty is when it's dangerous for the onlookers.

----!!Examples:

[[foldercontrol]]

[[folder:Anime and Manga]]* Motorball from ''Manga/{{Gunnm}}'' and spinoff ''Ashen Victor'' may not be intentionally lethal to participants, but some of the players certainly make it so. Also, a prime example of controlling the underclass by giving them a ''Blood Sport'' to keep them occupied.** The Scrapyard also has gladiatorial combat between giant cyborgs for entertaining the masses.* The Gundam Fight from ''Anime/MobileFighterGGundam'' is described in-show as "A war based on the principles of sportsmanship", with every country in the world being represented by a MotionCaptureMecha piloted by a trained fighter. Although the battles are (usually) bloodless, the Mobile Trace system that runs the HumongousMecha feeds back any damage incurred on them back to the pilot as physical pain. Thus, for example, if your machine has its arm torn off, you will feel as though your ''own'' arm just got torn off. The fact that many such injuries are simply shrugged off as an annoyance is one of the many reasons why just about [[WorldOfBadass everybody in the show]] is a major badass.* ''Manga/SpaceAdventureCobra'' has a sort of "no-holds-barred" version of Base-ball called "Rug-ball" where the idea is to reach each base in one piece... Naturally there are a few deaths involved, and naturally Cobra proves himself to be a spectacular player.* ''Manga/{{Freezing}}'': Carnival is a competition for rank fought by genetically modified students. Killing is one way to score points.* One episode of ''LightNovel/KinosJourney'' features a pair of cities whose constant warfare has been replaced by regular pogroms of the local villages. The cities compete to see who gets the most kills.** Compare Creator/CliveBarker's "In the Hills, the Cities."** And then there was the city where people constantly fought each other in arena for status, and any travellers who entered were automatically forced to participate. The winner would become a first class citizen, and could also make a new law for the city. Kino probably ended up making the place even more bloody than it already was, but also ensured peace in the long term.* Similarly, the Zoid Battles featured in ''Anime/ZoidsNewCentury'' and ''Anime/ZoidsFuzors'' are Humongous Mecha cockfights. Somewhat subverted in that there are multiple rules and restrictions in place to prevent death, though serious injury is a very viable possibility....* The anime ''Anime/StarshipGirlYoukoYamamoto'' centers around a game that replaced war in which teams of small, agile spacecraft dogfight each other. Fortunately, highly advanced teleportation technology means that the pilots rarely die.* There are two crash race mini-arcs in ''Anime/FutureGPXCyberFormula''. One is a crash race that takes place in a ghost town and the other is called the Fireball Race, in which the cars race across Europe and the [[WeaponizedCar cars are weaponized]] (with the exception of Asurada GSX and Proto Jaguar) to crash on other racers' cars.* ''Manga/BakusouKyoudaiLetsAndGo'' provides a A LighterAndSofter version as they're toying with toys rather than real people. The show starts up with a typical mini 4WD racing competitions, but later, there's a BigBad and his team who introduce battle parts to be used in racing. ''Kids'' are encouraged to make their toys mini weapons to crash and destroy oppornent's cars. Since the plot has more than one of the heroes' machine trashed by these rules, and since they have a believe that [[SlidingScaleOfLivingToys their mini 4WDs have souls.]] They take it a SeriousBusiness.* The Air Treks of ''Manga/AirGear'' initially began as a worldwide fad that was supposed to be inline skating taken UpToEleven. It turned into the Blood Sport it is today right around the time people discovered you could use the skates to make RazorWind, [[WhipItGood Thorn Whips]], [[ShockAndAwe Electrical]] [[RazorFloss Spider Webs]], [[MakeMeWannaShout Sound Barriers]], [[ShockwaveStomp Shockwave Stomps]], [[TimeMaster Time Manipulation]], and FrickinLaserBeams.* While killing is explicitly forbidden in ''Manga/DragonBall'''s World Martial Arts Tournament, considering it's a full-contact fight between serious fighters who often have superhuman powers it's not surprising that severe injury does sometimes occur. It's somewhat telling that there even needs to ''be'' an explicit rule about not killing your opponent.* ''Manga/DeadmanWonderland'' is a prison where the prisoners are forced to do insanely dangerous "events" like an obstacle race where you can be cut to ribbons, fall to your death or just fall into a pit of spikes. To make matters worse, the audiences watch and believe it is all "special effects". And then there's the Carnival of Corpses; where prisoners with [[BloodyMurder Branches of Sin powers]] fight each other and sometimes are cheered to kill their defeated opponents. Oh, and the loser (if they live) gets a randomly selected body part (ranging from hair to [[EyeScream eyes]] to entire organs or limbs) removed while they're awake. If you don't participate and are on "Death Row", then you are killed by poison after 72 hours and can only buy antidote to keep living for another 72 hours with Cast Points; earned by surviving and winning the Blood Sport games.* Ratings Games in ''LightNovel/HighSchoolDXD'', the arena combat sport used by Devil [[ChessMotif Kings]] to settle disputes. Several different formats are seen, but all actually have significant restrictions in place to prevent actual loss of life - pieces are "taken" rather than killed and retired to a holding area, medical attention is available after the fight, and attacks that could kill the target outright are heavily restricted or forbidden. Interestingly, the only time a no-holds-barred Ratings Game is seen, it was an entirely genuine attempt at good sportsmanship (a RunningGag is the protagonist team being horribly skewed toward overpowered nukes with precious little tactical acumen to go around).[[/folder]]

[[folder:Comic Books]]* Creator/EnkiBilal's comics feature chessboxing (boxing first, then chess) which is now [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_boxing a thing,]] and a version of ice hockey where the points are counted by goals, wounded and dead.* Spinball, from the notorious British comic ''[[{{Comicbook/Action}} Action!]]''. Played only by {{Condemned Contestant}}s. Rollerball on ice with giant pinball pins as targets. Really.* ''ComicBook/TwoThousandAD'':** ''ComicBook/JudgeDredd'':*** Supersurf. An (initially) illegal SkySurfing race through densely-populated streets, weaving between high-speed traffic. Later races included moving obstacles, snipers or dangerously narrow checkpoints.*** Also used in a ritualized "war" between Megacity One and the Sovs, in which Judges from each side fight to the death in a televised contest.** Another example would be Aeroball from ''ComicBook/HarlemHeroes'', which is described as a cross between football, basketball, boxing and Kung Fu. With jetpacks.** ''ComicBook/ButtonMan'': The events in "The Game" are essentially gladiatorial combats, usually with firearms in remote areas, and the rules decided by the Voices.* In the 1980s, DC released ''ComicBook/TheOutcasts'', a FiveManBand mini-series set in a [[CrapsackWorld Northeastern megalopolis]] [[TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture of tomorrow]]. Two heroes of this were Slaughterbowl veterans.* ''Threshold'' is about "The Hunted", a massively popular intergalactic TV show where targets are hunted down by mercenary teams. The event spans a heavily populated city, so targets' whereabouts are constantly being updated by eagle-eyed fans who see them on the street.* In ''ComicBook/PocketGod'', the pygmies like to play squidball. It's like dodgeball, but with a killer squid instead of a ball. Last one alive wins. * In ''All-Star Western'' #7-9, ComicBook/JonahHex gets involved in an underground pit fights in New Orleans where the battles are to the death.[[/folder]]

[[folder:Fan Fic]]* [[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast The Death Zone]] from ''Fanfic/CalvinAndHobbesTheSeries'' functions like this.[[/folder]]

[[folder:Film]]* ''Film/{{Gladiator}}'', and any other film featuring GladiatorGames.* The BMovie ''Film/DeathRace2000'' revolves around a cross-country race where contestants scored points for mowing down pedestrians.* Its remake, ''Film/DeathRace'', deals with a closed-circuit race on an island prison, where the competitors are death row inmates racing for their freedom. ''Death Race 2'', a prequel, shows how it began as a cage fight and how they brought cars into the formula to increase ratings. ''Death Race 3'' has "Death Race Navigator Wars", where female convicts fight to the death with weapons until only 10, who go on to be navigators in Death Race, survive. It also alters Death Race into a Baja 1000-style desert rally where many of the inmates have ''huge'' trucks.* ''Film/TheCondemned'' is basically ''Literature/TheMostDangerousGame'' meets ''Film/BattleRoyale'' with cameras, or ''Film/DeathRace'' (the recent one) sans racing.* ''Film/{{Rollerball}}'', adapted from the William Harrison short story ''The Rollerball Murders'', provides the image and quote at the top of this page. In it, the MegaCorp that runs the world uses the sport (a combination of roller derby, basketball, and a street fight) as a way to both provide BreadAndCircuses to the masses and to demonstrate to them the virtue of conformity and self-sacrifice and the folly of individualism. That backfires when the protagonist Jonathan E. emerges as a star player, an individual who excels at the game above and beyond his peers. There was also a remake in 2002, but it pretty much jettisons most of the story, and is far less well-remembered than the original.* In ''FutureSport'', the titular game is the world's most popular sport after the NBA was destroyed by scandal (TakeThat, soccer fans!), and was originally used as a replacement for gang wars. It is, needless to say, extremely violent and very SeriousBusiness; the movie centers around a game that serves as a proxy war between global superpowers, with territorial rights to Hawaii hanging in the balance* ''Film/EscapeFromNewYork'': Snake Plissken vs a huge guy. First they fight with baseball bats, then with baseball bats with huge nails.* The Creator/JeanClaudeVanDamme movie ''Film/{{Bloodsport}}''. You know, "Kumite...kumite...kumite!"* The eponymous Thunderdome in ''Film/MadMaxBeyondThunderdome'' provides this for Bartertown, in addition for solving disputes.* ''Film/DannyTheDog'' (a.k.a. ''Unleashed'') features an underground pit-fighting circuit involving barbed wire on the walls, axes, spears, and sledgehammers.* "Rehabilitation" in ''Film/{{Idiocracy}}'' is a judicial sentence as well as a televised event. The convict faces armed "corrections" personnel in a gladiator-style match featuring monster trucks, explosions and plenty of phallic imagery.* ''Film/TheBloodOfHeroes'' is about a post-apocalyptic world where the heroes make a living playing a game that involves hitting each other with chains and huge clubs while one person is trying to score a touchdown with a dog's skull.** Somehow inverted later, as some people made this a real sport, called [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jugger Jugger]] and increasingly popular in Germany, Australia, Spain and other countries.** This has also become a fixture of American LARP groups under the name "Daneball."* The film version of ''Film/TheRunningMan'' involves this, set up by a CorruptCorporateExecutive to deal with condemned criminals. [[spoiler: If the contestants are really "criminals" is another story.]] Contestants are hunted by "stalkers", sadistic strongmen with powerful weapons, and win by evading capture or death long enough. [[spoiler:If you win they kill you behind the scenes anyway.]]* In ''Film/{{Gamer}}'', a technology that allows people to control others remotely is, among other things, used to play live-action death match games by controlling condemned criminals.* Used a couple of times in the ''Franchise/StarWars'' films: the podrace in ''Film/ThePhantomMenace'' and the gladiator-style arena execution in ''Film/AttackOfTheClones''. * The 1989 movie ''Film/{{Arena}}'' is about people fighting for mass entertainment. IN SPACE!!* The Game Grid in the ''Film/{{Tron}}'' films. Errant Programs are sent there to fight until brutally de-rezzed for entertainment. In the first film, [[FridgeHorror video games played in the analog world]] were really life-and-death combat. This Trope was averted in ''Betrayal'' with the Games being non-lethal sports under Flynn's administration, but as soon as Flynn's back was turned, Clu re-instated the deadly aspect.* In the first film version of ''Film/ConanTheBarbarian1982'', Conan is forced to fight as a gladiator for his owner's amusement and enrichment. Needless to say, he gets really good at it.* Boxing in ''Film/RealSteel''. Since robots have replaced humans on the ring, there's nothing to stop the competitors from ''obliterating'' their opponents.* In ''Film/{{Snatch}}'', unlicensed, bareknuckle boxing matches and dogfighting seem to be Brick Top's two primary sources of income.* In the 2011 film ''Film/{{Warrior}}'': Although the sport itself is treated pretty realistically, the idea that MMA is a brutal bloodsport where competitors could die at any moment is played up for dramatic effect, particularly with Brendan's wife.* The 2009 Thai film ''Fireball'' features an underground variant of basketball that is very much a blood sport, with its competitors fighting each other with Muay Thai while trying to score points like regular basketball.* The film ''Film/TheWrestler'' portrayed ProfessionalWrestling as this, focusing heavily on the damage to their bodies that many wrestlers endure. At the start of the film, Randy "The Ram" Robinson is suffering a laundry list of health problems dating back to his in-ring career, and we get an up-close depiction of "blading", or slashing someone with a hidden razor in order to draw blood and get the crowd excited. [[spoiler:Randy's poor health ultimately kills him when he steps back into the ring one last time despite being in no condition to fight, as he suffers a heart attack in the middle of the match.]]* ''Film/XMenApocalypse'': [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gXHZqjkPXrA The seedy side of East Berlin]] gets its sick thrills from watching mutants beat each other up to a pulp. Angel warns the skittish Nightcrawler that if he doesn't fight, they'll both be killed.[[/folder]]

[[folder:Literature]]* ''Literature/BattleRoyale''. The novel is set in an AlternateHistory where UsefulNotes/ImperialJapan survived UsefulNotes/WorldWarII, implementing the titular program (in which randomly selected classes of secondary school students must fight to the death until only one survives) in 1947 as a means of social control. The film adaptation changes it to a TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture scenario where the Japanese government uses the program to combat an epidemic of [[JapaneseDelinquents youth delinquency]].* Creator/MaryGentle's novel ''Literature/{{Grunts}}'' features Orcball, a game strongly resembling UsefulNotes/AmericanFootball and / or Rugby and played with the [[SeveredHeadSports severed head of a fallen enemy]]. Or sometimes, when you want a game and there's a paucity of fallen enemies...-->'''Sgt.Major Guzrak''': The good news is, you made the Orcball team! The bad news is...as the ball.** Since there's no rules, the halfling team decides this means they can play Orcball mounted on horses with polo mallets. The orcs decide that means they can use mounts too. Harley-Davidsons, specifically.* ''Literature/{{Nerve}}'' portrays a game where the Watchers enjoy seeing the Players carry out dares which can get seriously violent.* Creator/StephenKing's ''Literature/TheRunningMan''. In this version, TV is free and is dominated by bloody gameshows where desperate contestants agree to risk life and limb for the chance at cash prizes. The most popular show, "Running Man" offers the biggest reward, but is almost certain suicide. The contestant is set loose into society, and viewers are asked to keep a watch out for him and provide tips for the show's bounty hunters.* Another Creator/StephenKing as Richard Bachman: ''Literature/TheLongWalk''. 100 teenage males are required to walk at no less than [[UsefulNotes/AmericanCustomaryMeasurements four miles per hour]], with no breaks. Drop below 4 miles an hour and you draw a warning. Walk for an hour without going below the limit and you lose a warning from your record. You can have up to 3 warnings and continue. Draw a fourth warning, and the army grunts who've been tailing the Walkers the entire time shoot you in the head. Last person left alive wins. The Walk follows the same route every year (the end point varies, naturally), and crowds gather to watch when it passes through their area. News updates when Walkers are eliminated or reach certain significant points on the route are broadcast nationwide, too -- characters mention as a matter of course that the Walk is the national pastime.* Creator/RobertSheckley's ''Victim Prime'' and ''The Tenth Victim'' are both set in a world where war has been replaced by "The Hunt". Taking place on a Caribbean island, The Hunt is quite simple: pay your entry fee, then face ten hunts against the same opponent, five as the Hunter and five as the Victim. The Victim is not only allowed, but expected to try to kill the Hunter. Bonus points are awarded for style and ingenuity, points are deducted for unnecessary collateral damage and killing non-victims. The very few who survive all ten hunts are treated as huge celebrities.* In the ''Literature/SwordOfTruth'' series, Emperor Jagang brings to the world the game of Ja'La, which is like football without pads and no penalties for unnecessary roughness...or unnecessary murder. Even attempting to have an opposing player assassinated before the game is considered fair play.* The people of [[Literature/XWingSeries Adumar]] seem to ''love'' this trope. They are pilot-crazy and refuse simulators and practice weapons as 'dishonorable', to the point where they were forced to make rules about who could fly against whom to keep the population from plummeting. Even so, those who aren't pilots get into blastsword duels. Even if the loser isn't killed in defeat, the winner can turn to someone to signal palm-up or palm-down whether the loser will live or die, and to turn to someone for the signal is a sign that the winner is sweet on someone. [[spoiler: Turns out that it's really only one prominent nation that is so obsessed, the middle and lower classes are not nearly as fond of it, and people can be convinced of their error.]]* While not a focus, passing mention is given to Brockian Ultra-Cricket in ''Literature/TheHitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy1''. It's been noted that rules disagreements end up at times starting wars. Which, all things considered, are considered more healthy.* The "ritual war game" variety is featured in ''Literature/{{Ecotopia}}'', where it's used as an outlet for people's aggression and warlike instincts.* Blood sports are (naturally) one of the entertainments on offer in Creator/ChinaMieville's ''[[Literature/BasLagCycle Bas-Lag]]'' novels, with one of the protagonists in ''PerdidoStreetStation'' being a veteran of the city of New Crobuzon's not-exactly-legal underground arena circuit.** And in a very literal example in ''Literature/TheScar'', the scabmettler's ritual dueling system.* In ''Franchise/{{Dune}}'' by Frank Herbert there are at least two blood sports. Notably, these are sponsored by both in the antagonist and protagonist Houses. One is [[Literature/{{Dune}} seen in detail]]: the Harkonnens have classical gladiatorial matches (with the additions of personal shields (read: force fields)) which the na-baron[[note]]heir-apparent to the Baron[[/note]] Feyd-Rautha participates in. Frequently. The second is bull fighting. The Atreides, in keeping with the Mediterranean flavor of Caladan culture, apparently took part in this, though only off camera. They may have stopped in recent years leading up to the book because a bull killed the Old Duke, Duke Leto's father and a skilled matador. In the ring. He was fighting it at the time. Actually, at the time he was being gored by it, but you get the point. (Come to think of it, so did he.)* These show up in ''Literature/TheRiftwarCycle'', where slaves and prisoners of war are made to fight for entertainment in Kelewan.* This is common in the ''Literature/TimeScout'' series. Ancient Rome is a tourist destination. So is Ancient Mongolia. And Late Modern Denver, and Medieval Japan. A lot of these places have dangerous games. Like boxing. And ritual sacrifice, game style.* Although not technically a combat game, the Scottish boulder-catching sport of Creaothceann from ''Literature/QuidditchThroughTheAges'' was eventually banned, due to its extremely high player mortality rate (one fictional ballad claims that, out of a group of twelve players, only two survived). Considering that the game is trying to catch giant falling rocks with a metal cauldron strapped to your head, while flying a hundred feet above the ground, this is not surprising. * ''The Year of the Flood'', parallel novel to ''Literature/OryxAndCrake'', has Painball, a highly violent version of paintball played by convicts and televised.* ''Killerbowl'', by Gary K. Wolf, is centered around "street football", a version of American football which is played in a 24-square-block area of the host city. The players are armed with knives, bolo clubs, and spears, and every team has one "hidden safety", who has a rifle with one bullet. Oh, and a single match takes ''a whole day'' to complete.* ''Literature/TheHungerGames'' in which kids are selected to compete, taken to the city, dolled up for sponsors, trained and set loose in an arena to kill each other. Made worse by the fact the people controlling it can make anything happen from letting loose mutants, to sending out contract killers to creating natural disasters.* One of the protagonists in ''Literature/RevelationSpace'' by Creator/AlastairReynolds is a former assassin for "Shadowplay", a company that lets people order hits on ''themselves''- usually the clients are people so bored by their extreme longevity that attempting to escape the assassin is one of the few things that they still find exciting.* The old game of foot-the-ball in Ankh-Morpork was like this, before Lord Vetinari and the wizards civilised it in ''Discworld/UnseenAcademicals''. One famous rule was put in place when a team scored a goal with what turned out to be an opponent's head ... to say that it ''still counted''.* There's a family-friendly version in ''Literature/{{Idlewild}}''. Clodge ball is an immersive, brutal version of strategy games the students played as children with graphic violence and attacks against the opposing commander encouraged; on the other hand, all the soldiers are virtual and wounds against human commanders are automatically nonlethal.* The play in ''Literature/ClocksThatDontTick''. It consists of [[StylisticSuck incredibly bad dialogue]] and King Charlemagne defeating unnamed 'infidels'. In this case, defeating them means actually killing the actors in the name of realism. Said actors were bribed into participating by false promises of cures for their sick families. * Pa Tappan (King of the Hill) from ''{{Literature/Valhalla}}'' functions as a vicious, limb snapping form of recreation for the Valkyries. Even among the toughest of them, attempts at taking the top spot are generally brief and end in severe injury.* In the ''Literature/DredChronicles'', Dred knows that her gang, being mostly brutal convicts, will get restless if there hasn't been any violence for a while. If there isn't much fighting going on with rival gangs, she [[BreadAndCircuses staves off trouble]] by letting them stage fights to the death (often to settle disputes among themselves, which saves her having to do it).* In ''Literature/StarksWar'', one of the military's bright ideas for increasing its budget is to package footage of military action (notably that recorded by soldiers' PoweredArmor) as entertainment for civilians back home. They're ''usually'' not so stupid as to broadcast live, since that would let the enemy gain useful tactical information from it, but "usually" isn't always. An unintended consequence of the broadcast of war is that there's pressure on military commanders to make sure there's plenty of action to keep ratings up.* In ''Literature/TheEmpressGame'', gladiatorial combat is fairly common, and the protagonist is the reigning champion of one particular arena. It's on a backwater planet, but she's good enough to attract attention from people who want her to (secretly and illegally) fight in the titular Empress Game, which has similar rules but isn't for entertainment — rather, it determines who marries the Prince.* This is the premise for Creator/TimMarquitz's ''Literature/WarGod'' novel, which is a DeconstructiveParody of this genre. The antiheroes intend to rig a tournament about this by upping the violence and murder to make their FakeUltimateHero look good so they can clean up when he crashes and burns.* in Wang, from the french author Pierre Bordage, Western nations uses third world population to play massive wargames with live subject. The combat is transmitted on TV. The two players are located above the battleground, can see what their troop see, and direct/order their commander who then relay to the rest of the army. Weapons and communications depends on the historical setting. Other use of third world population include slaves and body part.[[/folder]]

[[folder:Live Action TV]]* The Zulu-style cricket match in ''Series/MontyPythonsFlyingCircus'' is probably a form of this, as most of the players wind up speared by assegais. The sketch ends with a LongList of players named Pratt having been disqualified for reasons such as "legs off before wicket."* Played for laughs in ''Series/TheGoodies'' episode "2001 and a Bit", with 'rollerball' and its successor 'rolleregg' (which combines rollerball with an egg-and-spoon race). Finally they attempt to combine the ultraviolence of rollerball with cricket.* ''Series/MaxHeadroom'': The episode "Rakers" has the blood sport of Raking, in which teens on motorized skateboards ride around an empty pool and swipe at each other with clawed gloves. The sport was originally just a sort of full-contact half-pipe skateboarding until it was co-opted by mobsters and made into an exploitative spectacle. The mobsters sell the sport to Channel 23, but even the ruthless TV executives are horrified when they realize what they've bought, as they could never air it. Max Headroom exposes the blood sport, which apparently leads to its complete demise.* Used in ''Series/TheOuterLimits1995'' episode "Judgement Day", where convicted murderers are hunted down on national television by the relatives of their victims.* The ''Series/BabylonFive'' episode "TKO" introduces the intergalactic sport of "moo-tai," which sounds suspiciously like "muay Thai" but is more a [[FantasyCounterpartCulture fantasy counterpart]] to karate. Combatants wear a gi with a colored belt, practice in dojos, and ritually bow to each other. The ancient grand master who presides over the fights is basically a kung fu movie stock character wearing an alien mask.* In the ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries'' episode "Bread and Circuses," the PowerTrio ends up in [[PlanetOfHats Rome crossed with the 1960s]], where traditional-style gladiator battles are televised sport events.* ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'':** In "By Infernos Light", Worf is held captive by the Dominion and forced to fight a series of Jem'Hadar to the death as a Jem'Hadar training exercise.** "Captive Pursuit" had the quarry in a HuntingTheMostDangerousGame-type sport come through the wormhole and take refuge on the station.* ''Series/StarTrekVoyager'' gives us Tsunkatse, a ForcedPrizeFight which is often to the death.* Series/{{Angel}} ends up fighting in an arena in the first season of his show.* ''Series/CrossingLines'': The team uncovers a series of serial murders around this type of game. Families were kidnapped and the children threatened if the parents of each family didn't fight the other parents to the death. The families would be from one country, disappear while traveling in another country, and the bodies were disposed of in a 3rd country. [[/folder]]

[[folder:Pinball]]* Subverted by Creator/{{Gottlieb}}'s ''Pinball/{{Victory}}''; marketing materials indirectly suggest that the game set in a VehicularCombat arena, and the artwork shows cars loaded with [[SpikesOfVillainy assorted spikes]] and [[VehicularCombat weapons]]. However, the actual game rules make no reference to any of this, and it's easy to treat the game as a conventional, non-violent auto race.[[/folder]]

[[folder:Professional Wrestling]]* If there was ever a promotion that deserved the label, it was [[Wrestling/{{FMW}} Frontier Martial Arts Wrestling]]. Every dangerous stipulation used before? Tables, ladders, chairs, scaffolds, cages, thumbtacks, barbed wire, glass, motor vehicles, fire? About everything but a bear. Otherwise if Atsushi Onita got wind of it, he wanted it. He and Tarzan Goto tried things no one had heard of like electrified cables, landmines and [=C4=].* IWA Japan, an offshoot of an offshoot from W*ING, which was from FMW's inspirations in WWC. The roster divided its time mainly by using what it already knew and copying the new things FMW brought, but did have the crazy idea to have matches in pools being heated to a boil, to see who could stay in the longest.* Big Japan Pro Wrestling, longest lasting successor to FMW(turned competitor when FMW was revived), had such innovations as "heat stones"(space heaters wrapped in barbed wire), piranhas tanks, scorpions and buzz saws.* Wrestling/{{CZW}}, while not quite to the level as most of the previously mentioned promotions that came before, still might be the single most violent wrestling promotion in the history of USA. Imagine Wrestling/{{ECW}} but with the violence and sadism factor [[UpToEleven pushed to the roof]], sometimes [[RooftopConfrontation literally]]. That's [=CZW=] in a nutshell. At the very least, it managed to get electric powered weed whackers banned from all sporting events in the nation, and it's "Cage Of Death" was good enough for Big Japan to copy(but of course, [[UpToEleven make even more dangerous]]).[[/folder]]

[[folder:Tabletop Games]]* ''{{TabletopGame/BattleTech}}'''s Clans are the latter version of this trope - rules of warfare and codes of honour shared among the clans are carefully designed to minimize interplanetary collateral damage, discourage brawling, and avoid hard feelings - at least the dirty personal conflicts-kind.** See also the planet of Solaris VII, which is known across the galaxy for commercial [[HumongousMecha BattleMech]] fights. However, deaths in Solaris matches are relatively rare due to the ubiquitous [[EjectionSeat ejection system]] in virtually every mech ([[ArmoredCoffins Except the Spider]]) - deaths in the arena are generally only caused by sympathetic ammunition explosions, [[SnipingTheCockpit cockpit destruction]], or ejection system failure. Gladiatorial combat in the Periphery worlds or in the unrestricted and unregulated "blood pits" of Solaris (which is to Solaris fights proper what backyard brawling is to sanctioned MMA) is much more violent.* Creator/GamesWorkshop's ''TabletopGame/BloodBowl'' is a TabletopGame/{{Warhammer}}-themed version of American football and rugby re-imagined as a bloodsport that has replaced warfare in its alternate universe. Orcs, skaven and even undead field teams and are expected to try and maim their opponents to get ahead. Even sneaking a chainsaw onto the field isn't grounds for stopping the game.* The wargame/TabletopRPG hybrid ''TabletopGame/CarWars'', from Steve Jackson Games: not only is the favorite sport "autoduelling" (Main/VehicularCombat with armed stock cars), but its primary competitor is "combat football".* After the West Coast cracked off and sank into the Elatic Ocean in the ''TabletopGame/DamnationDecade'' setting, former baseball mogul Maurice T. Muswife devised a new sport: Omegaball. Omegaball is essentially Rollerball by way of lacrosse, played with a dense iron sphere and no penalties for UnnecessaryRoughness, and rapidly caught on as the new national pastime in Americo. Omegaball athletes tend to have ''very'' short careers, yet the sport has made it onto the slate for the 1976 [[UsefulNotes/OlympicGames Ekumen Games]].* The ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'' setting ''X-Crawl'' takes the traditional D&D dungeon crawl, transplants it into an Main/AlternateUniverse based on the real world, and turns it into an extreme sport, complete with sponsorships and television coverage.** In the Mystara setting, "court ball" is a blood sport favored by several Aztec-based cultures. In the Hollow World, athletic Blacklore elves engage in dangerous aerial duels on hoverboards, attacking one another with flame-cutters, though it's not really a sport; they're just bored out of their minds.* A theme deck from MagicTheGathering's ''Ravnica'' block was called ''Rakdos Bloodsports''.* Aside from the good old-fashioned gladiator arenas found in many places, the ''TabletopGame/{{Rifts}}'' setting includes a whole list of "Juicer" sports, played mostly by juicers ([[PsychoSerum drug-induced]] supermen), and by those few who can keep up. This includes Deadball (a form of handball where the ball in question randomly extrudes spikes), the Murderthon (was once won by a MightyGlacier juicer who flattened everyone else as they passed), and Juicer Football. Juicer characters can actually take "deadball" as a weapon skill, and buy ''exploding'' deadballs for weapons.* The universe of ''TabletopGame/{{Shadowrun}}'' has both "Urban Brawl" (essentially paintball or airsoft sans paint and soft) and "Combat Biker" (motorcycle polo with guns). American football is also implied to be a good deal bloodier, as players are all cyber-enhanced for increased performance.** In Germany there's even combat football (or soccer, if you like). Jamming an opposing player's head into a camera is a great way of neutralizing obstacles on your way to the goal. Note that all three, while still incredibly violent, are still not prone to fatalities thanks to the use of durability enhancing cybernetics and advances in medical procedures. The players, after all, are worth a lot of money to the games' sponsors and nobody wants to see a profitable investment suddenly get killed (or sidelined for half a season). Though [[MakeItLookLikeAnAccident things might always go wrong]].** And then there's Desert Wars, where the various megacorps field armies and have a war. In a desert. They use the event for advertising and to field-test their latest military hardware, same as RealLife auto races test new vehicle technology.** Even bloodier sports are practiced in Aztlan, including modern-day Aztec Court Ball matches and deadly last-man-standing game shows like ''Suerte y Muerte'' (Spanish for "Fortune and Death").[[/folder]]

[[folder:Video Games]]* The computer game inspired by the movie ''Film/DeathRace2000'', ''VideoGame/{{Carmageddon}}'', was even more so - and duly immediately ran afoul of MoralGuardians.** In some countries they got around censors by making the pedestrians into zombies, but in the third game specifically titled ''Carmageddon TDR 2000'', they headed it off by making zombie peds in the first place. Though cars get destroyed, no one is seen to die, and the way your own character survives auto-destruction implies your rivals may not be killed either, so it's no longer a Blood Sport.* ''VideoGame/BattleCars'' is another game about dueling cars.* Speaking of cockfighting accusations, there's ''Franchise/{{Pokemon}}'', which is (somewhat paradoxically) LighterAndSofter, but with far more powerful animals in question. Don't bother bringing a chicken unless it can kick though a brick wall.** The aforementioned chicken can jump buildings and control fire. It is considered [[CharacterTiers so-so]] at best, unless it can limber up as it fights. Then it's [[TookALevelInBadass just as awesome as advertised]].** The Pokemon canon does not portray Pokemon battling as especially risky; while by any human standards they would seem highly dangerous, the worst that happens is that they "faint", they can always be brought back to full health, and the subject of Pokemon death is in the anime usually never associated directly with battling, or at most only with trying to battle rampaging legendary creatures, while in the games it's implied most Pokemon deaths occur in the wild, with the villain teams being the only ones to intentionally kill monsters. A lot of Pokemon FanFiction, on the other hand, loves to take a somewhat more cynical approach to the battling aspect.* Another of the tamer uses of this trope, being from Creator/{{Nintendo}}: ''VideoGame/{{F-Zero}}'', a supersonic racing game where one false move can send you hurtling off a track suspended several kilometers above the ground. It looks like the [[TruthInTelevision real life]] Formula 1... however, the Formula 1 has many safety features in its regulations - such as chicanes in the tracks, tyre walls at every corner, and engine size limits, all of them aimed at keeping active (driver skills) and passive (crumple zones) safety [[StealthPun caught up]] with the vehicles' speeds - while the F-Zero is technically ''anything goes''.** As bad as the F-Zero races are, the F-Max Grand Prix that took place two centuries earlier are said to be even [=WORSE.=]** ''F-Zero X'' and onwards makes mentions to various safety features added after a [[NoodleIncident Great Accident]]. It is unclear what these are, and strangely, at the same time, the player now gets rewarded for killing their foes (with extra continues) as opposed to merely having less competition.*** It's implied that fallen vehicles are recovered in mid-air, and there's probably some form of beaming safeguard to remove the driver from a burning vehicle.** ''VideoGame/{{Wipeout}}'' adds weapons, and the level of lethality depends on how much of a CrapsackWorld the installment is. Most recent titles are considered to have emergency teleportation, and ''Fusion'' had some sort of safety monocoque containing the pilot that would survive when the rest of the ship blew up. On the other hand, in ''Wipeout 64'' pilot deaths were considered to draw more viewers.* The Commodore 64 and Amstrad CPC game ''SkateBall'' was one-third handball, one-third roller-hockey, and one-third barroom brawl, played on a field full of deadly traps. On ice.* ''Midway'''s ''VideoGame/TheGrid'' was about an ''Unreal Tournament'' style game show taking place in semi-virtual reality, in which contestants kill each other in virtual arenas to get money, and ultimately, an insanely large grand prize. While most of the killing is by virtual arenas, it seems that the weapons and projectiles are quite real, and contestants can kill members of the audience, although not without consequences, as if you kill audience members, you will be executed on spot by one of the weapons by the host after the round.* The ''VideoGame/UnrealTournament'' series features full-on gladiatorial combat with [[{{BFG}} BFGs]].** Well, until ''VideoGame/UnrealTournamentIII'', whose central conceit is that the Respawner technology used in these tournaments has been back-adapted to conventional warfare... with limitations and operation that are inexplicably similar to the contests of more traditional ''VideoGame/UnrealTournament'' games. [[FridgeLogic It doesn't make sense]], but it's [[RuleOfCool an interesting idea]] and is an excuse to include a plotline ''not'' revolving around the tournaments, so it works anyway.* On the far end of the spectrum, however, we have ''VideoGame/MutantLeagueFootball''. Players included [[FantasyKitchenSink trolls, skeletons, aliens, and robots]], fields were littered with [[DeathCourse landmines, pits, and other booby traps]], each team had a number of "audibles" representing tricks and gadgets that could be used once per half (like giving a player a JetPack, [[StuffBlowingUp hand grenades]], or [[{{Fartillery}} lethal flatulence]], or [[ShmuckBait rigging the ball to explode and then fumbling it]]), players would occasionally be killed from taking too much abuse on the field (and losing too many players could cause a team to forfeit), and you could occasionally bribe the ref to call bogus penalties on your opponent for things like "whining" or "nose-picking". Of course, your opponent could then kill the ref and only take a five-yard penalty. There was also ''Mutant League Hockey'', which was pretty much the same thing with a different sport.* In ''VideoGame/MondayNightCombat'', the entire game is one big blood sport in which all the human players are clones. You get extra points for certain types of kills, from a sniper rifle headshot to attaching an airstrike beacon to the opponent's head.* ''VideoGame/SaintsRowTheThird'' features Professor Genki's Super Ethical Reality Climax, a game show where players fight their way through booby-trapped mazes and fursuited enemies for cash and prizes.* Subverted in ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXI'', where the former blood sports of Ballista and Brenner were banned years ago due to "accidents", then reintroduced softened into completely nonlethal combat in modern times. It's still got 100% of the violence, you just can't actually ''die''.* ''VideoGame/SmashTV''. Blow away enough mindless, bloodthirsty drones (and there are hundreds of those - per level), and you could win a new car and enough 20-inch TV sets to fill an entire wall of your house. One of the oldest and best-remembered examples in video games.* ''Speedball'' was based on a futuristic cross between football, basketball, and soccer, but the original game wasn't exceptionally violent aside from lots of tackles and a generic DarkerAndEdgier atmosphere. However, ''Speedball II: Brutal Deluxe'' truly embraced the violent aspect, with teams scoring as many points for goals as they do for laying the opposition out on stretchers.* The old NES game ''BaseWars'' had robots playing a violent version of baseball - a bloodless Blood Sport. Whenever a tag out occurred, the tagee got the chance to escape it by beating the mechanical stuffing out of the tagger. Deal enough damage to a player and he explodes; take out enough players and the opposing team forfeits due to lack of players.* The Creator/{{Atari}} UsefulNotes/ArcadeGame ''Cyberball'' (and the MissionPackSequel ''Tournament Cyberball'') featured American football played with robots. The ball itself becomes critical and tends to explode as each down progresses; destroyed robots must be replaced by money earned by the player.* ''VideoGame/BetOnSoldier: Blood Sport''. B.O.S. is the name of the show, in which contestants and viewers bet on the outcome of one-on-one mercenary battles. Which also decide the tide of wars. In game, these function as boss battles.* The ''VideoGame/MortalKombat'' games, for the most part, focus on a grand martial arts tournament whose combatants fight to the death in order to ensure the survival of their home realm and their souls.* ''Franchise/TheElderScrolls'' series features the Arena, where fights to the death happen all day long and the player can either bet on them or become a participant. Of course, the Empire draws heavily from Rome so...** Given that these fights go on every single day for as long as the sun is up, and that ''every'' fight is a fight to the death, one has to wonder where they keep finding competitors.** Inverted in ''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIVOblivion Oblivion: The Shivering Isles]]'', where [[http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Shivering:Perfumed_Letter some]] [[http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Shivering:Scented_Parchment notes]] [[http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Shivering:Scroll_%28Cann%29 found]] in a ruined Arena show that slaves were abducted to engage in sex for the spectators. The captives instead assumed they were being prepared to fight to the death, and instead murdered each other on the arena floor, to the disappointment of their captors.** ''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsVSkyrim Skyrim]]'' actually doesn't have any kind of violent arena combat, though that is primarily because [[GrimUpNorth simply stepping out your front door puts you in a horribly lethal environment where everything that doesn't want to kill you for your pocket change just wants to eat you or turn you into a zombie.]]* A bloodless Blood Sport, strange as it sounds: the primary export of the planet Solaris VII from ''VideoGame/MechWarrior'' seems to be Mech-on-Mech arena fights. All the battles are live-fire; ejection seats are mandatory equipment for obvious reasons. In MW4: Mercenaries, you can choose to become a Solaris pilot, meeting - and fighting - plenty of [[MauveShirt fellow contenders]] along the way.* ''VideoGame/MadWorld'' centers around a gory deathmatch game show, fittingly called Deathwatch, where the goal is to kill each other senseless to the last man standing. And boy howdy, it certainly puts the "blood" in this trope.** Its SpiritualSuccessor ''VideoGame/AnarchyReigns'' features the Deathball multiplayer game mode, where two teams essentially play no-holds-barred arena football. The object is to get the ball in the endzone; a great way to do that is to make sure nobody on the other team is alive to stop you.*** And all LIVE on Shock TV.* In the Dreamcast game ''VideoGame/{{Headhunter}}'' we learn that criminals imprisoned in the undersea-dome (so you could say it's sort of a [[Film/MadMax waterdome]]) get to fight each other to the death which then gets broadcast live on TV, the winner gets a shorter sentence and the loser gets to generously donate their organs. Maybe they just didn't like Wade but some criminals got much better weapons than others.* ''VideoGame/{{Whacked}}'' was called a gameshow, but there weren't any questions. It was a hyperviolent bloodsport where you used egg guns, pitchforks, axes, and cacti among other things to slaughter your opponents. The contestants consist of manifestations of the seven deadly sins [[spoiler:and the host, a demon in disguise.]]* ''Deathrow'' for the original UsefulNotes/XBox is a sports game which is a mix of frisbee, basketball, and a gladiatorial arena. Two teams of four play, one team wins when they either knock the entire other team out or have more points when time runs out. Most players go for the fighting option.* ''Bill Laimbeer's Combat Basketball''. Mmmyep.* ''VideoGame/QuakeIIIArena'' is basically an interdimensional game of "Kill everything with guns". Luckily the Vadrigar that own the arena make sure that it's impossible to stay dead.* ''VideoGame/TheClub'''s premise is based on this trope. Convicts, adrenaline junkies, and psychos fight for survival, and people bet their money on whether they survive or not.* [[VehicularCombat Combat Racing]] in ''[[VideoGame/JakAndDaxter Jak X]]''.* ''VideoGame/TwistedMetal'' is a demolition derby game with armed cars.* ''VideoGame/MegaRace'' is a gameshow of some sort involves racing with JerkJock racing gangs. What you do? Blast them away with guns attached to your car, or take their positions and put them into tension so that they can't keep up and go kaboom on their own.* [[GrotesqueCute Bloody cute]] as it is, VideoGame/FatPrincess features a few sport minigames such as soccer where people are literally killing each other on the field.* ''Dead Ball Zone'' for the UsefulNotes/PlayStation. Just get this weapon and put that damn ball in the net.* The UsefulNotes/XBox game ''Videogame/ToxicGrind'', a game show meant to deal with outlaw offenders who break the "no extreme sports" law by putting them on a BMX, pumping them with a deadly toxin only counteracted by adrenaline and setting them loose on a death course (yes it's as silly as it sounds).* The ''VideoGame/{{Half-Life 2}}'' mod ''Smashball'' is a combination of American and association football, with the addition of grappling hooks, booster jets, and guns. The jets are mostly there to make big hits as deadly as possible.* ''Bulletrun'', formerly known as ''Hedone'', features average joes competing against each other in armed combat -- with international stardom as the ultimate prize.* ''VideoGame/{{Borderlands}}''** Has three different gladiator arenas in which different types of enemies are faced, as well as Mad Moxxi's Underdome, where the player(s) are pitted against wave after wave of bad guys and bosses for the entertainment of the masses.** The Slaughter Arenas return in ''VideoGame/{{Borderlands 2}}'', controlled by the slimy rat Fink, Moxxi's hacked Innuendobot, and Hyperion soldier Captain Cabrera. Mr. Torgue runs a "Badass Tournament" where the only way to rise in the rankings is either via Underdome-style free-for-all or by killing the badass ranked immediately ahead of you. It's all broadcast on interplanetary TV, too. Loggins the Buzzard pilot mentions that his old friends from the Buzzard academy like to play volleyball -- with a Psycho's head as the ball.* In ''VideoGame/MystVEndOfAges'', ruins on Laki'ahn reveal that the D'ni used to go there to watch the native Kresh fight in an arena against ferocious beasts called laki.* ''VideoGame/MarioKart''. No real damage is done as it uses cartoon physics, but really, if you have races where competitors throw bombs at each other, get launched out of cannons, and drive through the BigBad's lairs, while the courses themselves frequently feature man-eating plants, lava pits, slippery ice floes, and heavy commuter traffic, it's a Blood Sport.* ''VideoGame/BattleRealms'' the Wolf Clans culture is based around a brutal sport called wolf ball. The sport involves the competitors throwing rocks at each other, no one outside the clan could survive the first round of it.* ''Pigskin: 621 AD'' features the alleged seventh-century LowFantasy ancestor to football and rugby. Most of the strategy in this game involves beating up the other team a lot, and players may pick up and carry concealed weapons. The EndGameResultsScreen displays "Injuries Inflicted" under "Goals Scored" for each team.* Creator/{{Atari}} tried this with ''Basketbrawl'', a combination of 2-on-2 street basketball and gang warfare for the UsefulNotes/{{Atari 7800}} and UsefulNotes/AtariLynx. Traditional basketball scoring is used, but the lack of referees and the addition of weapons meant players would simply attack each other and then scored baskets while their opponents were down.* Bloodbowl, based on the tabletop game of the same name.* ''VideoGame/SmashmuckChampions'' is a very lighthearted, comedic, and bizarre example.* The Creator/{{Activision}} game ''[=HyperBlade=]'' was some kind of bizarre cross between hockey, jai alai, and exhibition stunt-skating. You skated back and forth to score goals (Hockey) by flinging the "rok" from the blade attached to your arm (Jai alai) inside of a curved arena where power-ups were often spawned at the mid-court and behind the goals where you had to essentially pull a flip or something off the top (stunt skating). The twist was that the blade, instead of being a scoop, was an ACTUAL blade, you weren't just allowed but ''encouraged'' to beat the other team into submission, and if you killed someone via decapitation, their head became magnetized instead of the rok. And of ''course'' you could score with it. The icing on the cake was the BlackComedy of the [[MegaCorp various sponsors]] of the games, their banner-advertisements, and the themes of the trophies given out for spectacular playing.* From what little we know about Thrashball from the ''VideoGame/GearsOfWar'' series, it seems to be somewhat like American football, except more violent. For example, the league has a record for "most number of injuries received during ''one play''". By ''Gears of War 4'', former star player Augustus "The Cole Train" Cole (who holds the aforementioned record as well as many others) has reimagined the sport [[WhatMeasureIsANonHuman to be played by robots instead of people]].** In ''Gears of War 3'', there is a small Easter Egg where you can peek in through a window and see a group of Locust huddled around a cockfighting ring watching two Tickers duke it out.* In ''VideoGame/SuperDodgeBall'', the object of play is to eliminate opposing players on the inner court by killing them.** A lot of Kunio's sports games are like this, to varying degrees. Particularly notable are events in the track-and-field competitions where the whole goal is the beat up the competition, as well as the footrace events, where weapons (up to and including bombs) are scattered all over the track and it is not unusual for someone to stop to pummel an opponent into submission. And then there's Hockey and Soccer games where the best way to score is to send a powerful enough shot right at (and right through) the goalie.* ''VideoGame/{{Battlezone2006}}'': Of the "Competition that has replaced war" variety.* The mobile sports/card game hybrid ''VideoGame/SoccerSpirits'' features a variation of soccer where violent clashes on the pitch are an explicit part of the game. Tackles and counter-tackles often end with either the attacker or defender laid out on the ground (and rendered unable to act for several in-game minutes), and goals are scored not by taking a shot at the goal, but by blasting the ball directly ''through'' the goalkeeper. In practice it's more like strategy RPG card fighting instead of anything resembling soccer in gameplay.* ''VideoGame/FatalRacing''. The announcers openly encourage the player to engage other drivers in lethal CarFu, yet it's still all supposed to be a competition with major manufacturer sponsorship.* As noted in "Web Animation", ''Franchise/{{Halo}}'' games from ''VideoGame/{{Halo 3}}'' onward have Grifball, which is basically like rugby, but with hammers and swords.* While there aren't exactly any arena sports the player can participate in in ''VideoGame/{{Fallout 4}}'', the character Moe Cronin who sells baseball bats [[WesternAnimation/KingOfTheHill and baseball accessories]] is under the impression that the game was a violent and deadly competition before the Great War* ''VideoGame/LetItDie'' last Don area is based around a blood sport league called Muscle International League Killer (MILK) where athletes killed each others with weaponized sport equipment. The Don was a former sumo wrestler who participated in the league and his boss arena pins you against three [[EliteMooks Haters]] and a miniboss on a sumo ring before fighting the Don himself.[[/folder]]

[[folder:Web Animation]]* Sarge from ''Machinima/RedVsBlue'' invented [=GrifBall=], where the object is to score points... and kill Grif. It became an actual multiplayer game type for ''VideoGame/{{Halo 3}}'' and subsequent installments in the series.[[/folder]]

[[folder:Webcomics]]* ''Webcomic/LastRes0rt'' is based almost wholly around this concept, featuring a number of sporting challenges within the DeadlyGame RealityShow. That said, only two players have died so far...* The city of ''Webcomic/TemplarArizona'' has a sport that is some kind of illegal street hockey called diesel. it is classified as a misdemeanor assault.* "Cutthroat combat croquet" from ''Webcomic/StrangeCandy''. A running gag is that the characters treat it no differently than any other rough varsity sport, even though every match seen - including a ''practice match'' - ends with at least one player (often an entire team) dead.* The Great Outdoor Fight from ''Webcomic/{{Achewood}}'': three days, three thousand men, one victor.* Mentioned briefly in ''Webcomic/SchlockMercenary'', although medical technology seems to play a role here as a player is blown to smithrines but will be back for the game next week. [[RugbyIsSlaughter Rugby on the other hand...]]* "[=FLARPing=]" in ''Webcomic/{{Homestuck}}'', a roleplaying game on Alternia in which the goal is to lure your opponents into very real death traps, including "trials" that almost always ends in the execution of the "defendant" (and often the "prosecutor") and a "plank" over the mouth of a man-eating GiantSpider.* In ''Webcomic/ManlyGuysDoingManlyThings'' Jared and his Gyarados Mr. Fish were kicked out of the Franchise/{{Pokemon}} League because he assumed Pokemon battling was a Blood Sport and let Mr. Fish ''eat'' his opponents.* ''Webcomic/TheOrderOfTheStick'' has an arena for gladiatorial combat. Many contestants end up crushed and/or eaten by an Allosaurus.* ''Webcomic/NeonIceCreamHeadache'' involves a drug that [[TrappedInTVLand zaps its user into a TV show]]. [[spoiler:When Jose, who has been force-fed that drug, comes out of the TV World, he finds that several television sets were set to the same frequency, and a clone of him comes out of each TV. These clones were meant to fight, but they instead attack the audience]].[[/folder]]

[[folder:Web Original]]* ''Literature/AssociatedSpace'' has the planet of New Tau Ceti, where a religious cult believes that only humans can sin, so the members put on pelts and pretend to be sheep. Of course, they still sin from time to time, so who to blame? The Shepherd, of course. So passing travelers are abducted, given shepherd's crooks, told they are shepherds...and forced to fight a genetically-engineered super-wolf in an arena. If they fight well enough, they have defeated sin, and may depart in peace. If not, well, they are a blood sacrifice to atone for sin.* ''Wiki/SCPFoundation'' has [[http://www.scp-wiki.net/scp-2206 SCP-2206,]] a series of radio broadcasts of baseball games from an alternate universe, one where violent fights between players are both common and expected, assassination attempts have been made on ''entire teams'', players include [[FantasyKitchenSink ghosts, cyborgs and genetically-altered humans]], and one team plays home games in the caldera of an active volcano.** [[http://www.scp-wiki.net/scp-2132 SCP-2132]] is an obstacle course run by Marshall, Carter, and Dark Lt.[[/folder]]

[[folder:Western Animation]]* In ''WesternAnimation/ThunderCats2011'' Thundera's GladiatorGames in their [[TheThunderdome Thunderdome]]: A racing ChaseFight between two [[{{Catfolk}} Cat]] competitors climbing, swinging, jumping and running up a giant tree to to ring a bell at its top, where violent kicking and punching in order to knock a competitor out of the tree are entirely acceptable methods of getting ahead.* ''WesternAnimation/SamuraiJack'' winds up in two of these during the show's run. A [[TheThunderdome Thunderdome]] after being captured and forced to compete [[spoiler: which he single-handily manages to shut down after the area's warriors prove no match for him.]] and an underground creature fight ring after being turned into a chicken and captured by a greedy Italian man.* ''WesternAnimation/{{Bionicle}}: The Legend Reborn'', is very heavy with this. The glatorians fight in the various arenas to solve disputes instead of out and out war. But it ends up being more of an aversion, as matches are heavily regulated to avoid serious injury.* WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}: The Butterfly Derby, An all-female sport popular on the Moon involving two teams of two fighting while wearing butterfly wingsuits. It is implied that crippling injuries are common and the championship match takes place over a lava pit.** Deathrolling, described as "skateboarding, except half the time somebody dies", is popular among the lawless pre-teen bandit tribes of Los Angeles. Fry thinks it sounds a little ''safer'' than skateboarding, though.* ''WesternAnimation/WackyRaces'' is ordinarily a mild variant, if it weren't for Dick Dastardly repeatedly trying to kill all of the other racers.* ''WesternAnimation/TheLegendOfKorra'' has Professional Bending, in which two teams of three (a Firebender, an Earthbender, and a Waterbender) use their abilities to knock the other team off a platform (or at least push them back the farthest). It is still much less brutal than one would expect from a sport derived from martial arts with built-in flamethrowers. ** Book Four has Korra hiding from her friends and family while going to an underground pit fight for six months...a fight with [[DishingOutDirt Earthbending]].* The entire plot of ''WesternAnimation/CelebrityDeathmatch'' (with heavy doses of the DeadlyGame Trope).[[/folder]]

[[folder:Real Life]]* Many types of artificially instigated fights between animals, such as cockfighting and bear baiting, have been and remain popular throughout human history.* Bullfighting, which pits man against animal in a fight to the death. * Rodeos. While the participants don't try to kill the animals, they are essentially "fighting" the animals to do something against their will. Given the size and ferocity of the animals, it's more hazardous for the humans, though the danger is part of the appeal.* The [[ForcedPrizeFight gladiator fights]] in [[OlderThanFeudalism ancient Rome]]. However, the number of gladiators who were actually killed in such fights was much, much lower in [[RealityIsUnrealistic reality than in fiction]]. Though the grand majority of gladiators did die in the ring eventually, they were expected to have fought over a dozen times beforehand, even if they lost every time. There could be months of recuperation periods between the matches, as well.* Various hand-to-hand striking sports, including all the various forms of boxing, kickboxing and traditional martial art sparring are basically fist fights with rules.* During its early years, UsefulNotes/MixedMartialArts was compared to "human cockfighting", and the sensationalistic word "bloodsport" is still commonly used in mainstream media to describe it. Old school boxing purists will stand beside their framed pictures of Muhammad Ali looming with fist cocked over an unconscious Sonny Liston and complain about how "brutal" the emerging sport is. Suffice it to say, modern MMA is no more dangerous or brutal than boxing, and arguably less so.* Underground fighting rings have sprung up throughout the world, usually run by [[TheMafia various]] [[TheTriadsAndTheTongs international]] [[TheMafiya crime]] [[{{Yakuza}} organizations]]. Most of the fighters are young men and teenage boys either coerced into it or kidnapped for the purpose of fighting. Since it's obviously not regulated and brutality attracts customers, deaths in the ring are a very common occurrence.* While amateur wrestling is not based on striking, it is still essentially a fight turned into a sport. Cheating maneuvers, such as gouging, are also not unheard of. * In its early years, UsefulNotes/AmericanFootball (then primarily played at the collegiate level) was an incredibly violent sport, with it being a regular occurrence for players to die as a result of injuries sustained on the field. It got to the point that President UsefulNotes/TheodoreRoosevelt (himself a boxer and bloodsport enthusiast) threatened to push for football to be outlawed, leading to the creation of the Intercollegiate Athletic Association[[note]]Now known as the National Collegiate Athletic Association, or NCAA[[/note]] in 1906 to regulate the game. Even today, football is one of the most dangerous impact sports still being played; especially since the recent revelation that [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronic_traumatic_encephalopathy Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy]] doesn't require a severe TapOnTheHead - a large number of small impacts is every bit as debilitating as a concussion.* This trope may explain some of [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qh5hNY83UA4 the appeal]] of UsefulNotes/AustralianRulesFootball. And, by extension, the International Rules series.* [[RugbyIsSlaughter Rugby]]. Both codes are bloody, and both hurt. There are even rules to remove players who are bleeding, and some players have played to the point of suffering bloody injuries, stopping and carrying on after being patched up. Rugby fans and even players embrace the reputation of it being a blood sport, just to scare others. * The Mesoamerican Ballgame: can't forget the Aztecs' old favorite of court ball and the similar game played by the Mayans, both of which could get quite bloody even ''before'' the losing (or perhaps winning, nobody's quite sure, all we know is that someone was getting their head cut off) teams in championship matches were [[HumanSacrifice sacrificed]]. Even without the beheadings, injuries result from a ten-pound rubber ball flying around.* Medieval "mob" football could often result in severe injury and sometimes death, and there are many records of the King or Lord banning it as a result, and nobody paying any attention. * Various other impact sports include lacrosse, hockey and water polo. While the intent of the game is not fighting, players impact and injure each other through the natural process of playing the game. In many instances, actual fighting between players is an unofficial facet of the sport.** The name for Lacrosse in some Native American languages translates as "younger brother of war."* Hockey in particular is notable for one trait. The padding more closely resembles medieval plate armor than safety equipment, and for good reason. A hockey puck is a rock (or more accurately, ice)-hard piece of frozen vulcanized rubber often hurtling around at 90 miles per hour or more. Players are moving at what foot sports would consider sprinting speeds nearly constantly, and can put on even faster bursts when necessary, resulting in players ''flying'' after a particularly brutal check. The rink is ice, never a soft substance, and the boards are plexiglass.....again [[RunningGag very hard substance with little give]]. Hockey is quite literally harder and faster than any other team sport. [[FromBadToWorse And this is before the fistfights begin.]]* While ProfessionalWrestling is not a real competitive sport, [[UsefulNotes/CatchWrestling anymore]], it can still be viewed as a blood sport spectacle, as the participants suffer significant injuries even when faking greater injuries during their performance. [[GarbageWrestler "Hardcore" matches]] in particular are focused on the participants dealing grisly and very real damage to themselves. This is why the Wrestling/{{WWE}} had to put DontTryThisAtHome messages on all their [=DVDs=], as during the Wrestling/AttitudeEra, pro wrestling ran into controversy over fans imitating what they saw on television (without the training that the pros had) in the form of BackyardWrestling, typically getting themselves grievously injured in the process.* [[http://io9.com/5884309/ultimate-tazer-ball-is-the-shocking-sport-of-the-future Ultimate tazer ball.]]* Jousting is a war game that turns charging into battle on horseback into a spectator sport. It claimed the lives of its fair share of knights and even kings during its heyday. * The original sport fencing was really just swordfighting with a few rules agreed upon beforehand. Over the centuries, its evolved into an essentially bloodless form of tag with metal sticks.* In ancient China, Dragon boats were a lot more brutal than they are today. The opposing boats would fight each other in the race, and when some fell off the boat, no one would try to save them, if they drowned then they are considered as sacrificed to the Dragon Deity. * Roller derby can be extremely dangerous, as can only be expected when players moving at high speed with heavy skates are expected to slam into one another.* Calcio Storico a sport played exclusively in Florence Italy, between 4 teams based on district of the cities in one tournament each year, is a basically MMA the ball game. 27 men for each team enter, and play for 50 minutes non-stop. There are very few rules limiting engagement, and the first half of each game is usually just a bunch of sparing, as the fighters on each side try to gain an advantage. Eventually the team with the ball (which would probably have had it for this entire time, just looking for an opening), will make a go of it. Scores tend to be very low, 2 points is a winning score. Brutal, it was started in the 16th century to demonstrate to besiegers that the men of Florence are not afraid. BTW: None of the participants are paid, and the winning's team prize: A trophy, and a free steak dinner.* The popular aquarium fish Siamese Fighting Fish got its name from the popular sport in Thailand (and other Southeast Asian Nations) of placing two males in one bowl and watching them battle.* Interestingly enough, motorsports had a reputation of being this up until relatively recently. For example, up to the late 70s, it was expected that up to 20% of the drivers in UsefulNotes/FormulaOne would either die or get horribly injured before the end of the season.* Skydiving used to be this in the early days. Veteran skydivers speak of "bad old days" from the 1940s to late 1960s, when people jumped with Army surplus gear, various techniques and procedures were still in infancy and safety culture was nonexistent. It was assumed if a novice skydiver survived his first 16 jumps alive, he would survive anything. (Which wasn't the case: accidents, even fatal, were commonplace even to seasoned jumpers). The salute ''blue skies, black death'' comes from the bad old days. In the 1970s and 1980s the culture changed radically, and improved gear, square ram-air parachutes and improved safety culture has made skydiving relatively safe sport.** BASE jumping (parachuting from fixed platform) is ''still'' extremely dangerous: one BASE jump in 250 will end up in serious injury, and one in 2000 in death.[[/folder]]